Dear Editors: I write to express my
extreme displeasure at the new (Fall 1999) design for the Kairos web site.
Now that your top-level pages have drastically improved, Kairos is no longer
an easy target. Even so, I persevere, inspired
by "Mystery Science Theater 3000" and its relentless (yet paradoxically
affectionate) ribbing of cheesy movies. I hope my comments will be
of some interest to you and to your readers.--Asst. Prof. Dennis G. JerzDepartment of English, U. Wisconsin-Eau Clairewww.uwec.edu/Academic/Curric/jerzdg

Old
Kairos:
Intrusive design smothers contentFor
the past few years, whenever the opportunity arose, I have critiqued the
online journal Kairos
as a high-concept site that works very hard to hide its content from its
readers. Pictures of the old site tell the sad story. [more]

Undergraduates
Review KairosIn
an informal, nonscientific classroom exercise, students generally found
the new (Fall, 1999) Kairos design "professional" and "crisp"...
but at the same time, the site was "intimidating," "a hassle," and "confusing".
Unfortunately, they said little if anything about the articles, instead
spending nearly all their time wrestling with the design. [more]

Undergraduates
Review This SiteSince
I have been so bold as to critique Kairos in public, it is only
fair that I invite others to comment on my own work. Most students liked
this web site... some didn't. Nevertheless, they had no trouble
finding the "content" on this site, and they had plenty to say about
it. [more]

Parting
Shots
ThoughtsThe
success of Kairos as a public forum speaks to the great need for
experiment, reflection, interaction, and introspection, so that we in the
humanities do not give the Internet over to marketers and hackers. Nevertheless
(in my opinion), the overdesigned Kairos site perpetuates the
myth that online rhetoric is necessarily complex and arcane. [more]